p.s. Hey. I didn't get enough sleep last night either, but I got more than I did before doing the p.s. yesterday, so this shouldn't be too bad, relatively. I am hurrying a bit due to it being Tuesday/ cleaning/ exile day at the Recollets. More importantly, here's a big, multi-part alert to you who are in NYC and the immediate environs. The great writer Kevin Killian, who has also commented here enough to qualify as a d.l., is doing three NYC events, and you so should attend one or more of them if you can. I'll let the knowledgeable and felicitous Kevin himself fill you in: 'Wednesday (tomorrow) at the Poetry Project is the NY launch of The Kenning Anthology of Poets Theater 1945-1985 which I edited with David Brazil. He and I will introduce the evening and we have some great acts including Charles Bernstein, Sonia Sanchez, Nada Gordon, Bruce Andrews, Fiona Templeton and Ted Greenwald, all of them presenting their plays collected in our book. That's on Wednesday at 8: info here. On Thursday Dodie (Bellamy) and I are reading at White Columns, with the poet Tim Griffin (who also happens to be the editor of Artforum). White Columns has a big Billy Childish show up and I'm looking forward to reading among his paintings. That's on Thursday April 8 at 7 pm, and admission is free. Here's the info. On Friday, April 9th, Dodie and I, and Eileen Myles too, are giving talks at the CUNY Grad Center starting at 6:30 p.m., This is part of a yearlong series called "Tendencies" in honor of Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick (not Edie Sedgwick as my NY-based student realized with chagrain), and it will be queer, queer, queer. Eileen has just won the Shelley Award from the Poetry Society of America--if only we still drank! Here's the info on that event. So you can see I'll be all over the map, and New York fans of DC's are urged to show en masse.' Listen to Kevin, folks, and be there. ** David, Hey. Okay, I'll go read that HTMLG thing. And I'll alert the others. Everyone, here's d.l. David: 'Dennis and all d.l.s who give a damn abt indie bookstore and phony benevolence should go over tho HTML Giant, type "Normal's bookstore" in the search box and read Adam Robinson's interview w/ Normal's Rupert Wondolowski.' Actually, I just did that, so you can go straight to the interview/post by clicking this. I'll read it when I'm done here, D., thanks. ** Alan, Hey. When Ai's first book 'Cruelty' came out in 1973, she was a really big deal and quite a controversial figure, at least in the poetry world. I lost track of her work after the 70s, and maybe that was a common occurrence, I'm not sure. It's certainly possible that her poetry influenced mine, yeah. I was pretty smitten with it in the early to mid-70s. ** Bill, I'm down for that jet lag club. Illogical as it seems, I think my jet lag might have been lying dormant until my cold got better, and now it's throwing me a surprise party. Oh, yeah, it was your commiserate liking of Ai's work that pushed me to do the post, so thank you, man. ** Chris (British), Okey doke. After your props on Father Ted and the avalanche of love his stuff got around here yesterday, I have a plan to investigate him today 'cos I'm feeling kind of left out, ha ha. I'll also keep a look out for 'Boy'. I hope it makes it to France. I think it likely will. Thanks much. ** David Ehrenstein, Hey. Well, Christophe wants Sagat's and my interaction to be totally non-sexual so far, but it's still early days on the figuring my part out front, and those underpants in question would certainly be a fair exchange. ** Put The Lotion In The Basket, Hey, Nick. Oh, I see, about moving to Spain. That makes total sense and sounds a bit of the old having your cake and eating it too. Nice thinking, as usual, man. You rule, as always. Oscar's back, or back in Paris at least, and even though she was waxing enthusiastic about her week in Sicily sans computer, I reckon she'll only be able to resist the pull of DC's for so long. ** JW Veldhoen, Well, if 家瑩 suggests a 3-way with one of its associates, watch out. That's all I have to say. ** Sypha, By now, my copy of 'Grimoire' should be at the printer and then on its way over here any day now. Yeah, send one to David Tibet. Why not? I'll add yet another heavy thumbs up to 'Pale Fire' while I'm thinking about it. Re: your liking of the Justin Bieber album, dude, the peculiarity and cross-sectioning of your musical tastes is one of the head-scratching wonders of the world to me. ** Chris Goode, Greetings, sire. Sorry about the glue attack, but, intellectually, you're handling it very well if you don't already realize that. Gosh, I'm really excited by 'Trash Humpers' based on the trailers I've seen. I don't under the 'cynical' thing. How so? Yeah, there's something fierce but shapely in Ai's poetry that's very compelling. Quite odd, that. Awesome that the Brighton and Cork gigs came and went replete with bells, whistles, and the like. And that you saw the great Tom Raworth! Feel better, I simply must insist! ** Pascal, Hey. Hope your computer is off the blink straight away. The Gluck reading is tonight, and I will tell him hello as soon as I can get a word in edgewise. Take care, P. ** Irene/ Dorna, Yeah, Ai is well worth investigating. Either 'Cruelty', her first book, or, maybe at this point, her Selected Poems. Tough stuff. I hope your wheels clung to the road through all that rain, and let me know how the events go, okay? Love from me. ** Tonyoneill, Howdy, Tony. I'm real glad you liked Ai's poetry. It's strange how under-known she's been the last couple of decades. I wonder why. Enjoy Nico's break, pal. Michael's sending me 'Sick'. Yum! ** Kier, Hey, Kier! ** Ken Baumann, Damn, your Easter overeating menu sounds so good from this side of the pond. But then so does the iceberg lettuce and lemon water cure. I'm easy when it comes to food, I guess. Apropos of almost nothing, the next time you're around someone who has overeaten to the point of misery and borderline nausea, and if you want to make them vomit for either cruel or benevolent reasons, try this line: 'You know what I'd really love to eat right now? A big stack of buckwheat pancakes with butter just oozing out'. I learned that trick when I was a kid. It works every time. ** Alex Rose, Well, that's too bad, because I've got dibs on the mountains of the moon. ** Crispin Best, Hi, Crispin. Yeah, it's good to meet you too. That 'piece of writing for every year since 1400' project is really fantastic. I spent a while looking around and reading pieces there this morning. I'd really like to make a post for the blog about the project/ site to celebrate it and alert people to it, if you don't mind. Wonderful idea, excellent contributors, and every piece I clicked on was surprisingly (or not surprisingly, I guess) really good. Yeah, a real pleasure and turn-on, thanks a lot. ** Steevee, Hope the talk with Ken is interesting. Seems like it could be. I missed the Gainsbourg bio film in the theaters here, and, hm, I guess you'll miss it for a while too. That infatuation with a friend of a friend thing ... that's tough. I guess the only way closer is the obvious and tricky, difficult one? ** James Greer, Well, hello there, Mr. Greer. That trailer rocks. In fact, hm, I'll imbed it at the bottom of this p.s. so everyone can find it, actually, because why the hell not? Hold on. Everyone, if you scroll further down you'll see an imbedded video. It's the trailer for James Greer's really, really, really, really good new novel 'The Failure'. Do take a little bit of time today to watch it, both for fun -- not only does it feature a Robert Pollard song on the soundtrack, but it's probably the best short form video since that old Replacements video with the speaker cabinet -- and for the sake of your reading abilities, which, I assure you, will never be everything they can be until you have read 'The Failure'. Thank you, Jim. Oh, and I got your email, and I'll write you back straight away. ** Jose, Oh, I wasn't really jealous. Maybe just a teeny weeny itsy bitsy little bit, ha ha. Anyway, I will be so kind, yes. Kind of flattered and grateful too, sir. ** _Black_Acrylic, Ha ha, all this love for Father Ted is going to start a backlash inside me before I ever watch him/it. ** Little foal, Hey, peu poulinent. Yeah, being and eating vegan can be downright luxurious if you like to cook. My favorite restaurant in the universe is an amazing vegan restaurant in LA called 'Real Food Daily'. They actually have a great cookbook out there too. Mm, yeah, I've tried vegan toothpaste, and I decided that was going too far. Ptooey! Really glad you liked the Sotos, man. I must say that boy muse of yours sounds like an amazing muse. Have you never seen him before or since? Excited about tomorrow (wink wink). ** Creative Massacre, Your stomach's okay with all that Red Bull, etc.? That's cool. Oh, gee, well, I sure hope you get that student loan, obviously. If you do get it, what are the dates that you'll be over here? I want to try to be sure I'm in Paris when you are if it's all possible, naturally. ** Justin, I'm really pleased you like Ai's poetry, of course. I suppose there'll be lengthier and more informative articles forthcoming about her. Death'll do that to a recently neglected famous person. Wait, you have cerebral palsy? Did I know that before? Is it pretty well under control via meds? Is it something that really shapes your life? ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey. I never really care if films accurately portray the people and lives they depict, so 'Factory Girl' has a shot with me. Yeah, but they don't want something sexual. I think the deal is that his relationships with other characters in the film are sexual, and I'm like the exception. I don't know. It's all slowly getting clearer. Paris really is that great. You really should go or rather come here someday. My day was consumed by a fair amount of sleepiness during which not much happened. I did have a nice coffee with Oscar and Kiddiepunk at the fairly usual spot Cafe de l'Est. They told me about Sicily. I told them about LA and the week of Paris that they'd missed. I talked them into going to a big art opening on Thursday that I'm excited about for this show 'Nemo' at Centquatre. Let me see if i can find an explanatory link. Yeah, here. I think Yury and his friend Lena and maybe Scott and Paul are going too. I foresee fun. Otherwise, not much yesterday. They showed Miyazaki's 'Spirited Away' on TV, and I hadn't seen it in years, and it was really great even dubbed into French., Yeah, I think I'm going leave my day at that paltry recounting and try to do better today. You? ** Misanthrope, I guess I think the ability to 'actually sing' well is among the world's most overrated virtues. Give me a weak, even terrible but interesting voice over one of those technically proficient belters and mewlers on 'AI' any day. Give me Britney over Christina any old day. That's at the heart of my problem with 'AI': its their idea that conventionally talented singers who have a very slightly distinctive vocal quality and who can 'own' some tired old song pop song from the past is the mark of high talent, ugh. So, yeah. I think the other day I said that Justin Bieber isn't known here in France. I was wrong. He was just here for something, and there were legions of you girls blocking traffic outside his hotel, etc. Maybe they were all tourists. I hope so. ** Kevin Killian, Hey, Kevin! Well, I did my best and put all the readings-related info up there at the top, and if people who read this blog know what's good for them -- and I suppose that's a good question, ha ha -- surely they'll appear at least one of those events. Really hope that CUNY events gets video-recorded particularly. Have so extremely much fun! ** Math, Ha ha, no, if I could have slept instead of doing the p.s. on time, I would have slept, believe me. It was that horrible thing where you're completely beat, sleepy, yawning, and yet physically too stressed out to fall asleep at the same time. Ugly and weird. Dude, you are murdering my taste buds with that mac & cheese stuff. No, not murdering, uh, gilding? Hm. Foodwise, I have no patience as far as preparation goes. So cooking is laborious to me. I make pasta sometimes. But mostly, I just put different things inside bread and change the condiments sometimes, and that's about it. I seem to be perfectly content to eat like a monk or whatever. It's kind of weird. Happy you dug the Ai poems, pal. ** Bollo, Making me go boing is no small victory, even though I probably come off like I go boing all the time. But it's more like blip in most cases. A very theatrical blip. Off work today, nice, nice. Art? ** Oscar B, There you are. I knew you'd come back. Hooray! Uh, I did better with the sleeping last night. Not great, but better. Ha ha, yeah, Michael and I are like a comedy team at this point, I guess. It's weird because I consider myself to be quite the enthusiast, but his hyperbole puts mine to shame. Talk to you later, yeah? Post-exile, probably. ** We are done. Oh, I pulled out an old dead post today just because I felt like it and because between that sickness and sleepiness and this and that, I'm kind of on thin ice as far as post making goes right now. Hint, hint. See you tomorrow.